Vortragende

After World War II the population of Austria stagnated at slightly below 7 million until the end of the 1950s. Ever since, Austria has been a country of net in-migration. The total population size reached 8.38 million in January 2010.

With the exception of migration, main population trends in Austria have remained unchanged since the mid-1980s. After the baby boom peaked in the early 1960s, a substantial fertility decline took place, which lasted until the mid-1980s. Since then Austria has recorded low and relatively stable fertility, with the period total fertility rate hovering around 1.3 to 1.5 births per woman. Austria has a long history of subreplacement fertility, completed fertility already falling well below two children per woman during the first years of the twentieth century, and rising temporarily above that level among the 1917 46 birth cohorts. Since 1970, life expectancy at birth has risen annually, reaching 77.4 for males and 82.9 years for females in 2009. The number of years a person may still expect to live at the retirement age of 65 increased as well, reaching 17.5 years for men and 20.8 years for women in 2009.
According to the most recent official projections for the years 2009 50 by Statistics Austria (2009), the population will grow, with decreasing increments, to 9.47 million until 2050-that is, by about 12.7% as compared with the population of 2010. As the number of persons older than 65 will increase by 80% over the same period, demographic aging is inevitable. The proportion of elderly (65+) people will rise from 17.6% in 2010 to 28% by 2050. The share of working-age population (20 64 years) will increase slightly until 2012, and then decrease by 7.7% until 2050 (from 61.9% to 57.1%), whereas the share of the population below age 20 has already started to decline.

These past and future trends in the demographic structure of Austria are quite diverse across the various regions in Austria and will be highlighted in the talk.

Now, more than ever, cities must be understood as social, economic, cultural and ecological entities, [that are] also shaped by technological revolutions within an international context (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Vision for Cities Task Group, 2010). Late C20th global developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have facilitated economic globalization and the informationalization and financialization of the world economy leading to O Brien s well-known (1992) end of geography prediction. Yet ,at the end of the first decade of the new millennium, important knowledge-intensive advanced producer services (APS), finance and linked business and professional services such as accountancy, legal, advertising and consultancy, remain clustered in global cities world-wide and are strongly represented in densely urbanised Europe. Significantly these tertiary services add value to international trade in primary and secondary economic sectors and hence have widespread impacts. In addition, their cross-border network organization makes them city connectors, thus firms with an international network of city-based offices are connecting urban Europe to mature and globalizing economies world-wide through their business-related flows. But, in spite of the virtualization of significant inter-city flows of knowledge and finance, cities still provide the physical basing points and infrastructure for APS interaction and agglomeration. Furthermore, the international financialization of real estate has transformed city business quarters into urban property markets that are a global financial asset. Drawing on the results from ongoing research for the European Spatial Observation Network (ESPON) Tiger - Territorial Impact of Globalization for Europe and its Regions project, the need for urban Europe to engage actively with these international developments will be argued. Adjustment to global changes is essential, hence the question will be addressed, are present European urban policies fit for this purpose?